If you're here – heck, if you're human – you know the feeling of anxiety. Worried thoughts, heart racing, body tension. Soon enough, you're drowning in it and shutting down from overwhelm. Being around people whose opinions we care about – coworkers, romantic interests – makes it all the more likely that anxiety or overwhelm will be in the room with us.
So I made you a quick, two-minute meditation for when you need to take a time out from meetings at work or a social gathering to release the overthinking and come back into presence. Save this YouTube video for when you need it.
And keep reading for insight into what's happening in our bodies when we experience anxiety and overwhelm – and how sometimes the trick to managing these emotions isn't managing them at all. Plus: my encounter with anxiety at a Bali dating event, and how I transformed the experience!
Two minutes is all you need for this reset. Grab a call booth or escape to the bathroom and pop in some earbuds to soothe your soul. Subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss more guided meditations coming soon!
I'm a trauma-informed meditation, yoga and somatic movement teacher (RYT-500) and I work with a small number of people one on one. Through mindfulness, movement and embodied leadership coaching, I help you find easeful practices that will support you through life's challenges and bring you back to yourself — so that you can feel more alive, more present, and more like you. If that's of interest to you, reply to this email and we'll figure out whether it's a good fit.
I'm also currently enrolling for a four-week group meditation course — one 90-minute session per week — that teaches a style of meditation that feels nourishing, healing, loving, free, sensory, embodied, connective and alive. If that intrigues you — whether you're new to meditation or a seasoned meditator — this course will empower you with a meditation practice that you actually stick to and look forward to each day. If you're interested in how meditation can change your experience of life, reply to this email and I'll send you the details.
What Is Anxiety?
Imagine yourself in these situations:
- You're about to walk into a conference room and give a big presentation you've been working hard on.
- It's your annual review and you're about to ask for a raise.
- You're getting ready for a first date with someone who you really vibed with over chat.
- You're at a friend's birthday party and... your ex walks in.
When you imagine each of these situations, what emotion comes to mind? Are you nervous or are you excited? Are you a little bit of both?
You might say, "I'm so anxious for this date!" but are you? What's the difference between anxiety, nervousness and excitement?
The challenge with emotions is that they are words we assign to specific feeling states and symptoms in our bodies. One person's "butterflies" in the stomach might be dread, while another person might feel the same thing and call it hope. Our bodies feel, and then our brains assign meaning to those feelings – sometimes incorrectly.
Learning to read your own body's signals without imposing labels on the experience that might not be yours – or might be the brain mapping past experience onto the present – will create more freedom and choice for you. You get to meet each feeling as it comes. You get to decide if asking for a raise is nerve-wracking or exciting.
So what is anxiety? Anxiety is actually just chronic stress in your nervous system. It's a word we use to describe a specific experience of "fight or flight" mode – particularly one that is prolonged. Most people use the word "anxious" when what they actually mean is "nervous." Anxiety is something that stays with us long after the inciting incident – the date, the presentation – is over. Anxiety becomes this ever present sense of worry that can eventually become overwhelm ("freeze").
How Can I Stop Feeling Anxious and Overwhelmed?
If you've ever had a craving for something, then you probably know how restricting yourself from having that craving satisfied results in wanting it more. Children do this all of the time. They see a toy or a treat they want, and the denial of getting it turns into hyper-fixation on it.
Desire is a feeling, just like anxiety and overwhelm. When have you ever been able to control your feelings? Right. So in the absence of being able to control them, we get to choose how to respond to them.
Try shifting your language from "stopping" anxiety and overwhelm to "calming" and "soothing" the feelings. Notice whether just the language shift in how you talk to yourself changes the feeling state in your body. If it helps, externalize the image to a child. When you stop a child, what is your physical posturing? When you calm or soothe a child, what is your physical posturing?
When we calm or soothe, we are giving loving attention. Meditation is a great tool for giving loving attention to emotions that make us feel uncomfortable. Some people also find relief through EFT tapping, which you can read more about here.
Can Meditation Make Anxiety Worse?
Think of meditation like food. Let's say the question is: can food make anxiety worse? Well, it depends on what kind of food you're consuming. If you eat a nourishing, grounding meal like a blueberry porridge, then no. But if you start your day with a frosted cinnamon roll, then yes, you'll probably experience a spike in your adrenaline – what we call a "sugar rush" – that will make your anxiety feel worse.
There are many different styles of meditation, and some are more suited to helping with anxiety than others. The Buddha famously said that there are "84,000 dhamma doors to enlightenment" – meaning that there are infinite practices for the infinite unique experiences and challenges that each of us has in life. You can experiment with different meditation techniques to find a practice that works for you, or work 1:1 with a meditation teacher (more on my offerings here) who can use their expertise to identify specific techniques that might work for your situation, and help you create safety through the process of exploring what works.
As a somatic practitioner, I particularly recommend meditation techniques that help bring you into the body. Anxiety and overthinking are bedfellows, and that's most often what people are worried about when they ask whether meditation can make their anxiety worse.
What Is The Most Effective Meditation For Anxiety?
The most effective meditation for anxiety is the one that works for you. 😉 I realize you might think that's a non-answer, but it's true!
In general, a successful meditation technique for anxiety should do two things: help you to regulate your nervous system, and create more compassion for yourself and how you are experiencing your life.
In the short YouTube meditation I created for you at the top of this post, I approach anxiety as a friend, seeing it as a messenger, and welcoming it into the room rather than pushing it away. That's just one approach. Give it a spin and then reach out and let me know how it went for you!
How Can I Cope With Anxiety At A Social Gathering?
If you're at a social gathering and you start to feel fight or flight kicking in, I recommend taking a step back. Go to the bathroom, step outside, anywhere you can find a moment of privacy and allow the stress cycle to move through you. Shake it off, play the meditation I recorded for you, and give yourself a hug. Let your body return to homeostasis.
Before you re-enter the gathering, see if you can identify the specific trigger that set you into a spiral, and if there's anything you can do about it. What would make you feel safer in the room? Finding a reliable anchor of safety that you can turn to will help send the signal to your nervous system that you're okay to be there.
Go back when you feel ready, and if you never feel ready, don't be afraid to leave early. Our feelings are messengers, and sometimes they're accurately telling us that a room is not right for us.
Now, what do you do when you really want to be in the room, but the anxiety is ruining the experience? Behind the paywall: what happened when I went to a dating event in Bali – and how I unexpectedly helped a stranger transform his anxiety to find freedom.
